Indiana Pacers Are Rediscoving Their Recipe for Success

The Indiana Pacers famously battled through “The Struggle” after the All-Star break last year, as a once promising season was derailed by, well, I’m not sure we will ever know exactly.

The struggle so far in 2014-15 has been entirely different.

Last year’s Pacers struggled to play up to their potential from February onwards. This year’s Pacers have struggled to simply get off the bus without spraining an ankle. As you may have been told, six of Indiana’s seven best players are currently sidelined. Casual fans have to be wondering, “Who are all those guys playing with Roy Hibbert?”

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Yet, despite all the early season losses, there is a certain level of optimism and pride surrounding this squad. The fight and passion that it has played with is nothing short of Hoosiers-level inspirational. Breakout starts by Donald Sloan and Solomon Hill, the triumphant return of A.J. Price, and the renewed dominance of Hibbert has given rise to good feelings that Indiana fans almost forgot existed.

As bad as the current roster appears, it has been competitive in every single game. Back-to-back wins over an improved Utah Jazz team and a still-strong Miami Heat roster have even created optimistic thoughts about this season. As little as a weak ago, even the most optimistic Indiana fan would have told you that the Pacers should throw away the season and focus on getting a lottery pick to pair with a healthy Paul George in 2015-16.

Now, it isn’t hard to talk yourself into the idea that, if this roster can merely stay afloat, a healthy core of David West, George Hill, Rodney Stuckey, and C.J. Watson could compete for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. And if they could just get to the six seed … and miss Chicago and Cleveland in the first round … and Paul George could come back … and he was healthy right away …

Well, its easily to get ahead of yourself.

A week ago, these thoughts didn’t exist because the idea that the current roster could even stay afloat was preposterous. Yet, with last night’s gutsy win, the Pacers just might have discovered a formula for short-term success until they get some of their big guns back.

That formula involves destroying its opponent on the glass.

With last night’s gutsy win, the Pacers just might have discovered a formula for short-term success until they get some of their big guns back.

Now, last night’s game could simply boil down to being a matchup nightmare for the Miami Heat. Even with LeBron James, Miami struggled to defend Roy Hibbert and David West. The Pacers often easily won the rebound battle. Furthermore, Miami are 27th in the league in rebound rate so far this year, and Chris Bosh’s 3 rebound performance from last night isn’t exactly surprising.

The Pacers, meanwhile, are the second-best rebounding team in the league (and first in offensive rebounding). Of course, Indiana’s atrocious field goal percentage (second to last) and proclivity for jump shots (they are fourth from the bottom in free throws per game) probably factors into their high offensive rebounding rate. Still, the Pacers appear to know their identity — something that last year’s team seemed to often waver in.

From the moment Vogel stepped into the role of head coach, the Indiana Pacers were built on defense, size, and strength. Vogel would often scream “punch” as the Pacers moved into offensive sets, a motto of sorts for everything he wanted his team to do. As Paul George and Lance Stephenson blossomed, Indiana subtly changed who it was. Hibbert and West got the ball less, the offense became more perimeter-oriented, and Roy’s “selfish dude” comment made it into public.

Last year’s team fundamentally changed, and although it was more exciting to see George explode for 40 points or Stephenson drop another triple-double, it was never proven that this was a positive direction for the Pacers. Indiana was simply not a better team with an unhappy, struggling Roy Hibbert. Perhaps more importantly, they started to play away from the biggest matchup advantage they possessed over most teams. Even an other-worldly performance from both George and Stephenson was probably never going to even break even in the matchup against LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. The Roy Hibbert/David West combo that had given Miami nightmares in back-to-back playoff series never materialized in 2014.

It is easy to fault Hibbert for that, and he definitely deserves much of the blame. But some of his struggles were about the changing nature of the offense as well.

Last year’s team fundamentally changed, and although it was more exciting to see George explode for 40 points or Stephenson drop a triple-double, it was never proven that this was a positive direction for the Pacers.

As you watch Indiana’s games this season, it’s much different. Sure, the talent is depleted and the basketball is much harder to watch, but players know their roles. Donald Sloan appears to know what he is as a basketball player, and it’s just what the Pacers need. Chris Copeland is jacking up shots from all over the place; the Pacers need him to do this. Copeland says that David West, George Hill, Roy Hibbert and all his teammates keep encouraging him to shoot — and that’s what he was going to do. Solomon Hill is filling in the gaps, playing backup point guard here, crashing the boards there, all while learning how to defend the other team’s best wing player every night. Lavoy Allen may be the best rebounder on the team, and his ability to tip in rebounds from awkward angles has been revelaory.

And then there’s Roy Hibbert, the guy who worked with Kareem all summer, the guy who struggled so badly last season, the guy who was the subject of trade rumors and complaints all over Twitter. He’s back to his old self, dominating the paint defensively, “punching it in” offensively, rebounding as well as ever, and he’s even improved the deadly-so-far hook shot in his repertoire.

The reality is that the Pacers are currently playing with house money. With so many players hurt, they should lose nearly every game they play. Just look at the ESPN box score from last night. Don’t look at the numbers but the positions. Of the nine players who saw the court, ESPN lists seven of them as forwards or centers. Only Sloan and Price are guards. So the Pacers played two guards in an NBA game — two guards who weren’t supposed to be rotation players on any team in this league on opening night — and won on the road against their heated rivals.

The talent is depleted and the basketball is much harder to watch, but players know their roles.

As Jeff Van Gundy said last night, “You can be upset with the results, but you can’t be upset with the team.” Wins like the one last night are giving fans a renewed hopeful optimism.

More importantly though, these wins are also giving the current players a confidence that they lacked in the past. That should carry over to when the top-line players return from injury, giving Indiana a credible bench that it has lacked for years. With that, this year’s Pacers’ roster should still be very good when healthy. Gregg Popovich has long benefited from sitting his superstars and allowing his role players to figure things out throughout the regular season. Although this may never have been Vogel’s plan, one has to enjoy thinking about how much better this bench will be with all of this experience they’ve gotten early on.

Perhaps some of these early injuries will turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the Pacers. And if it has helped them to rediscover some of their old magic, they just might not fade into obscurity as fast as many originally thought.

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Injuries Help the Pacers Rediscover a Recipe for Success

By Jon Washburn | Nov 13, 2014